San Francisco Chronicle: Newsom Halts Effort To Protect California Workers From Indoor Heat
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration unexpectedly yanked its support for a broad proposal that would have protected millions of California’s indoor workers from dangerous heat, saying it can’t endorse it without knowing the projected costs to the state. But the board that oversees worker safety immediately defied the administration on March 21 by unanimously approving new standards intended to protect people who work in poorly ventilated warehouses, steamy restaurant kitchens, and other indoor job sites. (Young, 3/28)

CalMatters: Newsom Budget Cuts Hit CalWORKS Program For Families
Joy Perrin had been living in a van with her two children for several months when she walked into a welfare office in 2018. She had left an abusive partner and had failed her first semester at Laney College in Oakland. A social worker told Perrin she qualified for the CalWORKS family stabilization program, which provides cash assistance, transitional housing and counseling to families experiencing crises such as domestic violence, substance abuse, or the risk of homelessness. (Robles, 3/29)

Los Angeles Times: California Is Making Fentanyl Test Strips Free To Organizations. How To Get A Kit
In an effort to slow the proliferation of synthetic opioid-related deaths, California will begin offering free fentanyl-testing strips to eligible organizations across the state that ask for them, the state Department of Health Care Services announced Thursday. (Garcia, 3/29)

Bay Area News Group: New Report: Kaiser And Stanford Rake In Millions More In Tax Breaks Than They Give Back
Two Bay Area healthcare giants rank among the top of a list of the country’s nonprofit hospitals whose 2021 tax breaks exceeded by tens of millions of dollars the amount they spent on financial assistance and community investment, according to an analysis of IRS and other records by the nonprofit Lown Institute. (Rowan, 3/28)

The San Jose Valley Sun: Valley Children’s Claims CEO’s Salary Is “In Line” With Industry. Tax Records Prove Otherwise.
After two weeks of relative silence to criticism over the heightened pay of Valley Children’s Hospital CEO Todd Suntrapak and a roster of executives, Healthcare Board Chair Michael Hanson said Suntrapak’s salary is in line with other comparable healthcare executives. However, a review of comparable children’s hospital CEOs throughout California reveals that claim to be far from reality. (Gligich, 3/28)

California Healthline: Your Doctor Or Your Insurer? Little-Known Rules May Ease The Choice In Medicare Advantage
Disputes between hospitals and Medicare Advantage plans are leading to entire hospital systems suddenly leaving insurance networks. Patients are left stuck in the middle, choosing between their doctors and their insurance plan. There’s a way out. (Jaffe, 3/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Opened Homeless Housing In Mission Bay. Then 911 Calls Began
Residents at a Mission Bay condo complex are raising alarms over what they say are hundreds of violent and disturbing incidents at a recently opened permanent supportive housing site across the street. Located midway between the Giants’ stadium and the Chase Center, HomeRise at Mission Bay is a 141-unit, four-story housing project run by the nonprofit HomeRise. (Toledo, 3/28)

Los Angeles Times: Homeless Deaths In L.A. Dropped, But Many Are Dying From Drugs
Fewer homeless people died in Los Angeles in 2023 than in the previous year, with nearly two-thirds of the deaths linked to drugs. The 23% drop in homeless deaths came even as the number of unhoused people has continued to climb in L.A. in recent years. According to data released Thursday by City Controller Kenneth Mejia, 898 unhoused people died last year on streets, in shelters, on freeways and elsewhere. (Smith and Elebee, 3/29)

CalMatters: Disabled Students Push UC To Provide Accessible Emergency Exits 
While California’s public university systems have robust emergency policies and procedures, not all students who are physically disabled have reliable access to equipment to help them evacuate in an emergency. (Wu, 3/28)

Bay Area News Group: It Took 7 Years For This San Jose High School To Establish A Gender-Neutral Locker Room
Seven years after the San Jose Unified School District promised to make accommodations for transgender and nonbinary students at all of its campuses, outraged students, parents and teachers called out San Jose High’s principal and administration at a meeting Wednesday for failing to follow through on that promise. (Gibbs, 3/29)

The New York Times: Health Concerns Mount For Migrant Children At Outdoor Holding Sites
To Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.” She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air holding site in San Diego’s rural Mountain Empire, to provide volunteer medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the United States-Mexico border wall and were waiting to be apprehended by American authorities. (Baumgaertner, 3/28)

Sacramento Bee: Whooping cough sickens 65 in outbreak at Bay Area high school, California officials say 
Northern California has seen a dramatic spike in whooping cough cases since December, Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis warned in a March 22 advisory. Since the end of 2023, county health officials have seen 93 cases of whooping cough, 65 of which have been tied to an outbreak ripping through Tamalpais High School, according to the Marin Independent Journal. (Daye, 3/28)

Los Angeles Times: Tuberculosis Cases Jumped 15% In California In Last Year
Tuberculosis cases are rising again in California, and health officials are urging those at higher risk, as well as doctors, to be alert for the disease, which can lurk in people’s bodies for years before becoming potentially deadly. (Lin II, 3/28)

California Healthline: A Physician Travels To South Asia Seeking Enduring Lessons From The Eradication Of Smallpox
Physician and podcast host Céline Gounder traveled to India and Bangladesh and brought back never-before-heard stories, many from public health workers whose voices have been missing from the record documenting the eradication of smallpox. (Gounder, 3/29)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Measles Is Once Again A Threat In California And Elsewhere
The measles virus is resurging in the U.S. despite the long-standing availability of a vaccine that provides nearly lifelong immunity. In the past few weeks, hundreds of people were exposed to a child with the virus in a Northern California health care facility; our state is one of 17 jurisdictions with reported measles cases in 2024, higher than seen in recent years. (Abraar Karan and Julie Parsonnet, 3/25)

San Diego Union-Tribune: School Districts Right To Demand Biden, Newsom Action On Sewage Nightmare
When it comes to the South Bay sewage emergency, it’s been an interesting — and, as always, aggravating — couple of weeks. (3/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: I’m A California Teen, And No One Taught Me What A Period Is
Through my work as an organizer and founder of my school’s reproductive health club, I’ve heard from dozens of my peers across the state who wish there was menstrual education in school. That feeling isn’t new or just in California. (Sriya Srinivasan, 3/29)

CalMatters: If Expanding Quality Health Care Access Is California's Goal, Medi-Cal Is Not The Solution
In January, California became the very first state to open its Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, to every undocumented immigrant within its borders. Some 700,000 adults between the ages of 26 and 49 now qualify for publicly funded health coverage. (Sally Pipes, 3/22)

CalMatters: Why California Needs Better Oversight Of Assisted Living Facilities 
The number of Californians who will enter assisted living facilities is expected to increase dramatically over the next few years. According to Justice in Aging, 10.8 million Californians will be over the age of 60 by 2030, accounting for 25% of the state’s total population. While the needs of this population will differ, it would be detrimental to ignore how this will affect assisted living facilities, family members and thousands of health care workers across the Golden State. (Ed Dudensing, 3/25)

San Diego Union-Tribune: How Can We Help Combat Loneliness Among San Diego’s Elderly? Here Are Some Tips. 
In the sunlit streets of San Diego, beneath the facade of a city vibrant with youth and activity, lies a silent crisis affecting our older adults. With 13.8 percent of San Diegans aged 65 and older, it’s crucial to address the pervasive issue of loneliness, a condition impacting more than one-third of adults in this age group on a regular basis. (Jason Baker, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Extreme Heat Is Deadly. Californians Need To Pay Up To Protect Themselves
“If there is one idea in this book that might save your life, it is this: The human body, like all living things, is a heat machine. Just being alive generates heat. But if your body gets too hot too fast — it doesn’t matter if the heat comes from the outside on a hot day or the inside from a raging fever — you are in big trouble.” So writes journalist Jeff Goodell in “The Heat Will Kill You First,” an eye-opening, blood-curdling investigation into the many ways that rising temperatures from fossil fuel combustion are making our planet increasingly unlivable. (Sammy Roth, 3/26)